Philosophy 290-6

A workshop for presenting and discussing work in progress in moral, political, and legal theory. The central aim is to provide an opportunity for students to engage with philosophers, political theorists, and legal scholars working on normative questions. Another aim is to bring together people from different disciplines who have strong normative interests or who speak to issues of potential interest to philosophers and political theorists. To this end, we will devote a few sessions to the work of economists, historians, psychologists, sociologists, or other social scientists.

Format: for the first two hours, a student will lead off with a 15-minute comment on the presenter’s paper and the presenter will have 5-10 minutes to respond before we open up the discussion to the group. The first two hours will be open to non-enrolled students and faculty. For the third hour, the guest presenter will continue the discussion with students enrolled in the course. Enrolled students must serve as a discussant for at least one presenter’s work in progress and write several short response papers as well as a final paper of 15-20 pages.

The course is room-shared with the Law School and the Philosophy Department. This course will follow the UC Berkeley general academic calendar. The first class meeting is January 22nd and the the final class meeting is April 29th.